Ask a Saints Fan - Playoff Edition

I ask because that’s repeated often all season and, outside of their home games when they have a crowd advantage, I haven’t seen it. The same could also be said for the Giants though I think NY has a legit excuse in that they’ve had injuries to two of their three best rushers.

67% is not horrible for our offense and pretty consistent for the past couple games.

They might collide, but it won’t be because one of the two best guards in football missed his block altogether. :-)

But I’m not reaching for unlikely possibilities (Alex throws for 450 yards!). It is likely that Brees will complete a pass or two that goes for 20+ yards. It is likely that the Niners will intercept Brees once or twice. The former is less likely to happen if the Niners have the lead and need not take uncalculated risks. The latter is less likely to happen if the Saints lead and can take calculated shots.

The Niners have set up their offense all season with the kicking game and defense controlling field position. When they’ve scored on defense or ST they’ve scored more than 30 points. The Lions had a fumble return TD in their hands that never counted b/c an official mistakenly blew his whistle. I’d expect such an opportunity to be available to the Niners since that’s how they play just as much as I expect Brees to complete a high percentage of his passes regardless of distance since that’s how the offense plays.

Again, if such an occurance happens it would make sense that the Niners score 30+ and do better than prior Saints opponents. Without such an extra score, we’re back to the Niners in that 24-27 range. Without an incorrect whistle, the Lions would’ve had 35 in the Superdome. The Niners’ point total at home can and is likely to mirror that total in such a scenario which is more likely for them to accomlish than it was for any prior Saints opponent.

(All numbers taking away kneeldowns at the end of games)
Opponents up to the rams game:
178/997 5.6y/c 7tds
Opponents after the rams game:
165/753 4.6 y/c 4tds

4.6 yards/carry is still not all that good. Also, in those last 8 games the Saints played the Giants(32nd in rushing yards and Y/C in the NFL), Tennessee(31st in rushing yards, 29th in y/c), TB(30th in rushing yards), Det(29th in rushing yards), 2 games against Atl(21st in y/c, 17th in rushing yards), and then Minn, and Carolina(both in the top 5 in rushing attacks). 4 games against the worst running teams in the nfl, 2 against a middle of the pack team, and then 2 really good rushing teams. Kinda explains how the numbers might have gone down from the first 8 games.

The only thing I know are the stats you just gave.

But 13/29 for 282 seems like the opposite of stopping the big play.

He averaged 21 yards per completion and over 9 per attempt (which is higher than Aaron Rodgers who led the league at 9.2).

If he went 23/29 for 282 for about 12 yards per completion lots of dump offs nothing down the field that would make sense.

We have stopped quite a few good run first teams

You guys are allowing opposing rushers 5.0 a carry… is that considered “stopping” from where you stand?

Is using a rookie that came in, in relief, for the injured starter who you all had game planned against… That’s kind of a wacky circumstance I would say. Hasselbeck is not a scrambler like Locker, so when you had to adjust on the fly, that’s what inflated the numbers…

Also… Chris Johnson had an off year against virtually everyone… he was not himself…opposed to Frank Gore having the second best year of his career outside of his 2nd… but like you all, we have more than one running back that can cut you.

Your defense is worse than it was a year ago… and much worse than it was in 2009.

According to Sando, they were 28th in RZ TD defense. Also, Detroit went 4/4 in scoring red zone TDs.

Even though they played the Colts, The Bucs twice, and the Rams (who they lost to).

That with all the QB’s throwing so many yards this year people and media focus on the passing game
Ball control offense and great defense is your game plan thats cool it has gotten ya’ll to 13-3
No one is putting it down I just gave my opinion why the media and the fans dont fawn all over your offense

Frustrating as it can be (lack of 400+ yds per game) you can’t argue with his lack of turning the ball over to the opposing D.

I love what Alex has done this year but I think one starts to lose credibility when saying he should’ve had better numbers based on different variables like dropped passes, yada yada. He should’ve had a few more picks that were dropped as well, so it goes both ways. I think it’s fair to say stats don’t tell the whole story, but that’s as far as it goes in my opinion. Damn good season for Alex, and let’s see it improve into 2012 and beyond.

Any time.

South was tied for 3rd w/ AFC East

would be the SOS of the 49ers vs. the Saints… not really the division itself ( I agree that the NFC S was somewhat better than that W, because Falcons > Seahawks).

By pro-football reference, NO faced a -1.6 (negative is easy) and the Niners a -1.1 (Packers by the way -1.2 – Patriots and Texans also had easy schedules). By footballoutsiders.com, the Saints and the Niners had the 31st and 32nd easiest schedules (-4.2% DVOA), but down the 2nd decimal to tell.

So neither team can really claim to have had a tough – or even really “tougher” schedule.

By overall ratings (if you are in to that) 49ers at home should be a pick-em or 1 point underdog. Vegas thinks otherwise… (to be fair, special teams-ingoring advancednflstats.com has the Saints well ahead).

Both teams are one good QB away from being very solid teams in the division and also in the NFC. Their defenses are pretty stout. The Seahawks had the injury bug along their Oline pretty much all year long.

But I think that you will see that this is a division on the rise next season. I think because of that, we will definitely have our work cut out on repeating a 13-3 season again next year. We have Packers, Saints, Patriots all on the road next year. In any case, I think the NFCW has been the worst for a long time and that has built a legit perception… but the perception is on it’s way out here real soon.

AZ is an average team and thus has the perfect record of 8-8. They can hang with any team when playing at home and due to their defense being very solid in the red zone, they can stay in most road games. Average.

Seattle is better than their record and hurt by playing in a good NFC West, where they suffered three losses that would be wins against most teams. They have one of the best secondaries in the NFL and a top 10 defense to go along with one of the best RBs in Lynch.

As for sucking, there’s a team that quit in Tampa, a defense that couldn’t stop a toddler from scoring down in Charlotte, and an average team that puffed their record up on weaklings that just got exposed in Atlanta.

I would rank the ACF South as the worst and AFC West as next. You could then put the NFC West in the same grouping as the AFC East and NFC South. You can take those three and put them in a different order depending on which time of the season you do the rankings, thus why I said “likely” 5th best. One could could rank it 6th and not be wrong.

The Falcons are slightly above average and chokers on the big stage. They barely beat Sea early and Sea would probably wipe the floor with them in the later 1/3 of the season.

Cards are better than Carolina and despite records, the Rams are probably better than the Bucs. I don’t think the Bucs could beat LSU Alabama right now.

Your division is not difficult.

I have seen you guys belabor this point over and over again ad nauseum. Are you trying to hammer this point home hoping beyond hope that it has such a drastic impact? Sure we dont play on grass. Sure our away games have not been as dominant in the scoring. I would rather believe that game plan as opposed to field turf is more of the logical argument but thats just me. By that argument, since your team is so “dominant on grass” why aren’t they lighting it up when on turf? Is turf their achilles heel? Do they have to have exposure to the elements to play well?

either that, or you know nothing about statistics and my comment seems sarcastic. If so, I apologize.

Five is not a big enough sample size to come to a “statistically significant” (aka meaningful) conclusion.

Double Graham spy either Bowman or Willis on Sproles. I think he could get blown up Ray Lewis style when he was on the Chargers style at least once.